Archive for June, 2009

I don’t usually say sorry but when I do I totally mean it for the most part. It’s not a word to be thrown around casually and for me, I rarely find myself wanting to apologize.

See, I don’t feel the need to say sorry for reasons that may or may not be mentally healthy. If I say something out of line or shocking to another person or may outright offend said party and it was an honest opinion, I do not see why I have to lace that with an apology. If a person asks for something and upon receiving it finds that it is not what they had in mind, then it is not my problem. Not gonna say sorry if I hit you either, unless it was an accident, you must have done something to ask for that too. Why should I feel bad for that? If anything I get more mad that it has come to this and now we are going to have to ruin it for everyone around us. If anything I feel owed an apology.

That said I do feel the need, out of courtesy for the most part, to say sorry if I step on your shoes or bump into you on the train. Everyone should have some manners. Even the most indecent of God’s creatures should have them. Nothing wrong with that.

But if I hurt your feelings for some reason I will rarely say sorry. More than likely I mean to do it. And if I didn’t or I am just acting like an asshole amendments will be made. Also, a large part of meaning you are sorry is also accepting the fact that the offended party can still stay upset with you indefinitely. So when people go “I said I’m sorry!?!” after realizing that it takes more that words to apologize, 9 times out of 10 they didn’t mean it. Drunken bar antics and the like excluded.

So this brings me to the heart of the matter. Not that there are a lot of people I want to say sorry to, but there are a few people out there that I have always felt a little guilty about how things went down. Two ex-girlfriends, 3 old acquaintances and a few people here and there that got the raw end of a bad day. Some of these people I will never be able to say sorry to and some I may not ever muster up the courage to. But there are a few in-between who I did track down via networks like Facebook or Myspace and have begun to say sorry. I don’t expect to hear back from some of these people. Some will just think it is my usual strange behavior, I’m sure. But hopefully I can put some peace of mind to a few. I have nothing to lose and everything to gain on this move.

It kind of started when a friend died and I never got to see them and tell them that I really thought they were something special. It really struck a nerve that I couldn’t tell someone who is supposed to be my friend and is dying how much they meant to me. It got me to think that maybe there are some other people out there that maybe, just maybe I should let them know how I felt. Maybe even say sorry for being a jackass. I don’t expect anything from it. If anything I am being selfish and trying to pad my fall into Hell a little bit. Who knows? But I do know that it’s the right thing to do and a step in a more mature direction.

I also have a list of people I have been meaning to tell to fuck off. It’s longer than my apology list and will probably feel better than any blow job on earth.

Life is never easy. I hear this all of the time. We all struggle to get to the top of the anthill only to find an aardvark waiting for us at the top. You’re just as fucked at the top as you were at the bottom. There must be a tremendous amount of pressure and anxiety upon your discovery. Your heart pounds like a Billy Cobham drum solo with each beat pushing a rush of blood and stomach acids to the top. It’s like a wave of every poison you have ever ingested and every bad feeling you could have ever had mixed together and it boils. Coming to a head somewhere around where your neck and head meet with such an exquisite and painfully slow burn that nestles right behind your ears. You feel dizzy and angry. Rabid and confused. Not knowing if you should curl up in a ball or smash everything in sight. The back of your head makes home for the drummer as you hear “Boom, Boom, Boom” over and over again. And with every strike of the kick drum your eyes bulge and it feels as though if this keeps up your eyes may actually shoot out of your skull. You are willing to do anything that will release this pressure so that you can go on acting like a semi normal human being. You just can’t seem to win no matter how great or how little you try. It’s futile. And you wonder if anyone else feels this way too as you pass the masses of your so called peers on the street. The suit and tie guy, the ne’er do wells on the corner, construction workers, the trust fund kid with all the time and money you can imagine, housewives on their way back from dropping their precious children off to ballet and the rest of their lot. You wonder if they feel this constant hum of pain to the extent you do. Your skin is now hot and flushed. The sweat that has accumulated is starting to evaporate and it feels like a chemical burn all over your body. The growing uncomfortability is too much to bear and it takes every bit of your fading will power not to cave in their smiles with your fists. To take your keys and wedge them between your fingers as you deliver one disfiguring blow after the other so that you can at least hope that someone in this tiny rock of a planet can feel something that slightly resembles your day to day anguish.

That’s me most of the time. At one point in life I let my violent whims get out of control. I won’t lie and say that I didn’t enjoy myself. I slept like a baby in those days. Be it all the booze that I used to dumb my emotions or the sheer physical exertion from fighting. But I slept and well.

It was a great void. Black and empty. Almost magical. If it were to be given a name I guess one would have to call it The Land Of Fuck It. Because that’s pretty much what I said the whole time I was there. Fuck it. It doesn’t matter. Each day was another crushing blow to any accomplishment I had ever done. Each day I would climb up the hill only to find the ant eater waiting for me. And each day I would try to come back up with a different tactic to put an end to it.

Eventually you stay down. Let the bastards come to you. You stay down and build a wall of alienation that takes years to perfect. It’s no easy skill. And as outsiders come and try to scale your wall you surprise them by setting everything on fire. Your private kingdom, it’s protective wall and them gone in one fiery outburst. And that my friend is life at the bottom.

Eventually you’ll grow tired of your crash and burn behavior. You move forward. Progress. But with that comes responsibility. You realize that the anteater has to work twice as hard as the ants. He has to stay sharp and keen. He can’t miss a beat or else he’s failed. The margin for error is quite slim at the top where as it seemed like a super highway down below. And then it starts again. The boiling acids in your stomach act as a warning shot for what’s about to come. You can only laugh and realize that there was never progress in the verticle sense. You only move horizontally. Side stepping into the fire. Now you’re on the outside looking in.

For years I went without watching TV. This thing called work got in the way and totally put a wrench into my TV watching routine. For decades I was still stuck on the 2nd season of X-Files and had thought life had ended on the boob tube right then and there. I still couldn’t tell you what happened on that show after I stopped watching it.

It was sort of socially crippling in a weird way. See when everyone is jawboning about the latest episode of 30 Rock or 24 around the old water cooler I was left out. Now had they been talking about Cheers, Night Court or Married With Children I could totally get in on the action. But that was never the case and the few times I volunteered that those were the last shows I really followed, it usually led to more awkwardness. But whatever, I am used to being a weirdo.

So fast forward some years later and I am married, live in a house and have a nice TV. Something larger than my usual 9″ television that I primarily used to watch movies (mostly porn) and play video games. So it seemed having this behemoth of a television ought to require getting cable. Besides, my wife should not be forced into my somewhat luddite nature either. She actually follows a bunch of shows, mostly on Bravo, but whatever. She digs it. Point of the matter is that I am now paying for television service and may as well watch it. God, what a silly decision!

As I make my way into the new world of television where “Reality TV” is king and any fool can be a star I find myself really appalled. This new brand of television may actually rot your brains whereas before I would just say the shows I watched prior to my hiatus would only dumb me down just a little. Every season brings us one step closer to a show where you just stare at a strangers ass and wait for them to fart. Don’t get me wrong. There are a few good shows on TV. But not enough to blanket some 700 fucking channels.

It makes me wonder when I see shows like Daisy Of Love or Real House Wives Of NJ. Seriously. I sit and ponder for a good bit as to how some idea man in a brain pool came up with this shit. I then ponder some more and wonder exactly how and why after this bad idea emerged to seed and bear fruit to eventually land on our laps. Seems like you could pitch anything these days and it’ll stick. So that got me to think even more as to shows that I could think up of that would totally sell. Here are a few:

Bros.: It’s like “Friends” but for the modern day frat boy. It’s basically a show about nothing involving crucial games of Rock Band, jamming out to some tunes, UFC, salvia bongs and lots of Axe Body Spray. It will be shown on Univision as “Primos” dubbed completely in bad spanish. BET will do a spin off a few months later called “Brothas” which will have a lot of big booty ho’s, clubbin, banging, ballin’, Lil. Wayne, getting “goosed down”, Remy Red and lots of Axe Body Spray.

America’s Next Top Mortician: It’s a stiff competition to see who will in fact be America’s Next Top Mortician. The winner gets $100,000 and gets a job as Joane River’s personal plastic surgeon. Can you imagine the wierdos you would get on that show. Never mind the challenges. Making people with bullet holes in their forehead look good, who can embalm the fastest, making big people fit in tiny coffins, etc. This show will kill it.

World Of Warcraft Multi World Championships: Ever watch World Championship Poker and not fall asleep? I bet you this shit storm will keep you on your toes as we watch nerds from around the world fight for precious metals and raise levels to conquer and destroy other nerds. I have a good feeling this would be shown on Comedy Central and the highest demographic of watchers would be single or recently divorced men.

The Truth Hurts: I would love for this one to come true as I have been wanting to do this for years. It’s like Candid Camera from hell, with love. You get a room full of 4 or 5 people. Each show could be different, you could have Upper East Side Wives one episode, room mates the next, groups of friends, etc. It starts off like they are just having drinks when they are out of nowhere gassed with truth serum and start to let fly about how they really feel. All of a sudden the emotions come out. Friends admitting they have crushes on their best friends and that’s why they hate each others girlfriends. Infidelity, rumors confirmed and scandal all the way. Lives will be devastated or completely renewed with each episode. On the reunion show at the end of the season we will get them all back together and gas them with angel dust and leave a cache of weapons out. American Television never had it so good.

We could even air things like Hammer Smashed Face: The London Symphony Orchestra Performs The Work Of Cannibal Corpse. I can’t wait to hear the violins on Meat Hook Sodomy. BBC, eat your heart out. Or we could air the Way Off Broadway production of Roshambo The Musical. Think of Monty Python’s take on The Bells Of Saint Mary. But with balls. This production is so off Broadway that it is actually shown in some basement in Maspeth, Queens.

It’s 2009 and Barrack Obama is the president. He is also the first non white president. Making him a rather big deal. Now 99% of the world will refer to him as the first “black” or “African American” president. This kind of bums me out to a degree and here is why:

Barrack Obama is biracial. Meaning he is of two different ethnic origins. In his case he is White and African American. He predominately grew up with his White family. Again, none of this is a bad thing. What is a bad thing is that after years of civil rights we only see things as black and white. Society still kind of refuses to acknowledge the fact that the world is turning to a huge multi racial community. I myself am Chinese, Cuban and Welsh. It makes it hard for me to fill out surveys when asked what my ethnicity is because when you mark down other they try to assume that you are Native American, Inuit or a Pacific Islander. Which I am neither. So what do I call myself? The answer is simple. Me.

At this point in the game race is still rather crucial but never for the reasons we’d like. It is usually used as a hindrance, crutch or some sort of tally system for voting. We still associate that people who are not white white the words “poor’ , “crime” or “drug cartel” as a few examples. When we fail to realize that these are words that can be applied to the majority as well. I mean the term “White Trash” just didn’t appear out of thin air.

But more to the point. The fact that our President is half African American and looks African American therefore has to make him 100% African American. Which to me is taking two steps back in Civil Rights Movement altogether. Because we are still playing the race card. In this instance we see the race card being played on both sides. The liberals are somewhat idolizing him and at times making him out to be the second coming. As a matter of fact there was a town house in the city on W.11th st. that had a manger scenario for Halloween that portrayed him as Jesus. Then you have others that either use his image for profit or think he is a get out of free pass. Visually I am bombarded with Obama mugs, shirts, hats, etc. All usually saying “First Black President” not first Biracial president. Or even better, let’s keep it at 44th President.

While I am happy that it does inspire hope to people who would normally feel that they would not be able to achieve what this man has. We have to remember that our skin is not what makes us. It is just a part of us.

It seems as though our president is a fad. Nothing more and nothing less. Which will probably kill the momentum of anything he may do. As it stands now his magic is starting to wear off. A lot of his voters failed to realize that he still has a job to do and that job will at times provide results in which no one is happy about. As it currently stands people are starting to realize how conservative he is with Prop 8 being tossed around in court. He is tied in tight with his church, most people forget that fact.

It’s the franchise that really gets me though. It’s as though we are exploiting the fact that we have our first non White president. Again, in a fad like manner. Some of these shirts portray our 44th President in an iconic way others in a sort of subtle (and often not so subtle) fuck you to White and Black America.